Terrible Wind

We have had really bad wind all day. 32 mph gusting to around 50. Couldn't grill, plant flowers, walk or really do anything outside all day! The Memorial Service that's usually at the cemetery had to be inside the Lutheran Church. Tim & Bette Jo are visiting their daughter Kelly & family in Kansas. Bill has been feeding their dogs and the shop where they work on things is at their house. Bill found a bunch of Tim's shingles flapping in the wind today. So after we helped take flags down at the cemetery, we went to their house and Bill glued a bunch of them down. He took me with him to call 911 in case he got blown off the roof! Check out the tree trunk closely - love it!

The VFW ladies always do lunch on Memorial Day so I went and got carryout since we couldn't grill. It was maidrites (kind of like sloppy joes) or ham sandwiches (they put margarine on them??), homemade potato salad, baked beans and choice of bars (brownies, Scotcheroos, etc.).

After lunch, rather than fighting the wind, Bill stayed home, and we worked on house stuff. He installed some things in our upper kitchen cabinets that make the doors close quietly (thanks to Carl telling us about them). Our bottom cabinets were already that way. Nice! Didn't realize how much noise I was making until we don't have it! I had him pull out the stove & refrigerator so I could clean the floors. I usually do that but have seen linoleum flooring torn when moving appliances so it's better if he does it. Vacuumed on top of the cabinets and things like that. I guess you'd call it Spring Cleaning - but it just needed to be done.

Flags and Misc.

Orioles love grape jelly too (I don't know about other flavors??) so I put some out. It took them about 5 days to find it but now they're eating both the oranges and jelly. The nice thing is this little table is even closer to the window!






I finally got my big flower pots planted yesterday morning just as it started sprinkling. Mom, Diane, Lacey and I learned at the container gardening class we went to that it's good to have a thriller (something tall), fillers (your colorful flowers) and a spiller (something that hangs over your pot). I'm not a big fan of geraniums, but these pots are in a very sunny, hot area so I'm trying them this year. I still need to go buy a few more flowers.

I spotted these wildflowers when I was mowing Thurs. Pretty color!










I try to do a nice mix of colorful foods and like it when the meal looks nice on the plate. A good cook I knew said it's best to use all white plates so that your food is what you see rather than a pattern on the plate. We do have a set of all white ones, but I use plates from about 4 different sets all the time.




I made the rhubarb pie finally yesterday and shared it with Peggy, Diane, Todd, and Lacey. (Shhhhh, don't tell anybody but I even made the crust with LARD!!! What a difference that makes. Too bad it's not healthy.)





If you haven't checked on the Decorah, Iowa eaglets for a while, you better look quick! HERE They are not babies any more! Surely they will be flying off soon!

Bill and I helped put the flags above up in the cemetery last night. This is just down the road from our house - our closest neighbors. The flags are only up from Fri. evening until Mon. evening. A Memorial Day service is always on Monday with speaker and the school band.

Misc. Spring Stuff

Seems like we've been doing a lot of running around and misc. stuff lately - nothing too exciting to blog about.

Yesterday we had an appointment in Algona to get the squeaky driver's seat in the Enclave fixed, and Bill had a chiropractor appointment. It was a really rainy day to be running around in. We got a loaner Buick to drive while they worked on the Enclave. We had lunch at The Chrome and ate too much so this was my colorful supper. We're still trying to lose weight but after both losing almost 15 pounds, we're enjoying some "regular" meals out, pizza and dessert once in a while but hoping to lose a little more.

The fields are starting to turn green. I took these pictures today of the corn. It's amazing to me the way the landscape changes colors here over the year. From all white in winter (all winter usually) to brown to light green, then darker green (and lots of it) to yellow & green in Sept. to yellow and then more of a gold and then a different brown when the crops are ready to be combined.














Bill came up to where I had been mowing this afternoon so I asked him if he could cut down some branches that were sticking out in the way.









This is the new mower that Tim picked out. Good job Tim - it's nice and does a good job! Tim, Peggy and I share it to do our own yards and then also at three farms and the bin site so it'll get a lot of hours.




If you enlarge this last picture, you'll see a deer. I saw it on the way home from mowing. Usually there are two or more together but this one seemed to be alone.

The Orioles

I haven't seen many exciting things to take pictures of lately - except my new feathered friends, the Orioles. I've definitely been enjoying watching them. They look like pudgy robins except orange! This feeder that holds two orange halves is right outside our great room window. I have several other feeders to get out. Now that we got 1" of rain last night, it'll be easier to get the poles in the ground.

Bill got done planting all of the beans this week and replanting in areas where they had tile work done. Tim finished rolling the beans. All just in time for the rain, which was needed.

I got most of the windows washed and screens put in. Now bring on the nice weather! It's been a cold spring. The leaves on many of our trees are still not all the way open. Lilacs are just blooming. It's a windy day today as it is a lot in the spring here.

Bill and Tim are now working on fixing things that broke during planting. Peggy's pickup is in the shop today, Bill's working on his, they have a couple of intakes to fix thanks to me. I need to get the Buick in for a bad squeak in the driver's seat. Bill needs to get to Algona for a hair cut. I need to go to the cell phone store.

The Goodwill truck is in the area again so I'm cleaning out more old, unused things. I even found a home yesterday for some of Bill's worn out jeans! Diane's babysitter makes blankets with them! I like it when somebody can get some good out of things like that!

Rhubarb is ready. I picked some this week that I need to make a pie with today. Unfortunately, Bill doesn't like anything with rhubarb in it. I'll share with Diane - she loves it. Grandma & Grandpa R. always had good stuff in their yard - lots of tulips and daffodils, apple trees to climb and the applesauce she made with those transparent apples was so good, Lilies of the Valley, grapes and black raspberries that Grandma made jelly with, rhubarb and gooseberries for pies, hollyhocks and all the other things they planted in the vegetable garden. Now that we're situated in the new house, I'm working on getting some of these things going in our yard.

Possible Frost Tonight

I brought my pansies in - again. Chance of frost tonight.

I went to church this morning. It was good to be back after missing a few Sundays. We got a little rain yesterday so it's still too wet for Bill to finish the last two fields. So after lunch, he and I headed for Ft. Dodge. We had a fairly long list of things to get at Walmart, Menard's, Sears, Younkers and Office Max. I wanted to stop at Hobby Lobby too but Bill remembered that they're closed on Sundays.

Got home around 6:00 and unloaded and put everything away. Bill carried up the heavy, old TV that had died in the basement and took it out to our burn/bury stuff in hole so that's nice to have that done. He fixed/glued my broken goldfinch feeder.

Then he asked me if I wanted to ride along - he was going to go check the corn and beans to see how much they're up so he could worry about the possible frost. This reminded me of the summers I stayed with Grandpa & Grandma Dunk in southern Indiana. Most evenings we would go for a drive to "check the crops". And then end up at the Tasty Treat for ice cream.

Spring Things

When I recently went to the Garden Extravaganza in Pocahontas, I bought this simple Oriole feeder. You just stick two orange halves on the spikes on it. The same day I put it out this week, a male Oriole showed up! Wow, what an impressively bright bird! We don't have many Cardinals around here (the Indiana state bird), and I'm kind of sad about that but hope to put out the black sunflower seeds and attract some. But if not, I'll be happy with Orioles, goldfinches and hummingbirds. Click HERE to see photos of Baltimore Orioles.

I can't wait to get all of my feeders up now that our landscaping is done. The three hostas I transplanted from Diane's have opened up and are looking nice back by the patio.

These tulips are new this year and are in the front. I need to get some mulch down in this area.




Bill and I were in the same field (140 acres) last evening - I was working the last half and he was planting the first half - until it started raining. I took this picture of the wall cloud when I got home. We ended up only getting 3/10" - could use a little more to get all the crops that have been planted growing. We just have one more small field to go after it dries out. Bill & Tim are having some guys put in some tile for drainage in that field so have to wait until they're done.

I LOVE the new quad trac tractor. Even though it's huge, it's so easy to operate and smooth to ride in. Sad that my job for this Spring is over already. I wish field work was more of an all year thing!

Carl did get his cherry pie for lunch the day after he helped me with the intake problem!

This past few days I was on the road a lot. One day I was at the seed dealer's with the seed tender about four times. The video below is of Joe loading a box of seed onto the seed tender. The guys used to have to lift, open and dump many, many 50-60 pound bags of seed into the planter until they started using these big boxes.